Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.metro From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Convict Jaycees donate $7,000 Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 15:30:30 EST Message-ID: \SE B;METROPOLITAN \SS (WS) \HD Convict Jaycees donate $7,000 \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT HAGERSTOWN, Md. HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - A Jaycees chapter of inmates overcame riots, lockdowns and the restraints of prison life at the Maryland Correctional Institution to raise thousands of dollars for charity. The 35-member Jaycees chapter at the prison washed and waxed cars and collected and crushed aluminum cans for months to raise thousands. The group donated $7,000 this week to seven nonprofit organizations. "We know that these are hard economic times of despair. We have one purpose - to see that these organizations get the money to help cure some of these ills," said inmate George Kenneth Smith, one of the charter members of the Jaycees chapter, organized in 1980. "We don't make $40,000 or $50,000 a year. We're incarcerated, but we also feel. We care about people. This is from the heart." The chapter gave $1,000 each to the Cerebral Palsy Association; the Parent-Child Center of Hagerstown; Washington County Extension Homemakers Council; the Mason-Dixon Boy Scouts Council; Johns Hopkins Children's Center; the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation; and the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Maryland. "This donation will send three children to summer camp," said Ellen Torres, district director of the Muscular Dystrophy Association in Timonium. "Often the limitations imprison them in their own bodies, but at summer camp, these children get to do everything normal children do. I'll make sure they know that your group sent them there." The Jaycees chapter, one of a handful set up at prisons around the state, raised the money during the past 15 months. They said their fund-raising efforts were hampered by a May 1991 riot that triggered lockdowns and curtailed prison meetings and activities. They collected more than 47,500 aluminum soda cans, raising $800. Most of the money donated, however, came from washing hundreds of cars owned by correctional officers and other employees at the prison. "They'll let us know how they feel about the job," said chapter President Ricky Alexander, 32, who is serving a 20-year sentence for second-degree murder. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM